As a religion major, I was required to take a course on the study of Christian missions.  I endured the class.  I even learned a couple things I haven’t quite forgotten yet.  I read about the history of the ecumenical movement which began as churches cooperated in mission work (who knew?).  I read prescient books that (twenty years before 9/11) noted the rise of a virulent expression of Islam which understood itself to be at war with the Christian West.

Most of what I learned in that class I forgot ten minutes after the final exam, but what sticks in my memory is the prayer that the professor used to open the class.   Dr. Warren Woolsey almost always included this petition in his opening prayer: “God, make us a winsome people.”

At the time I thought it a quirky prayer request: “Make us attractive, Lord.  Make us likeable and lovely.”  Frankly, it irritated me.  I thought asking God to make us look good so we could be effective in evangelism sounded like asking God to help us manipulate others. 

Based on my experience with the institutional church and a lot of the Christians I knew, asking God to make them appear winsome would be asking God to engage in false advertising.  Winsome?  How about mean, judgmental, divisive?  I was having a hard time seeing the church I knew as winsome.

But Dr. Woolsey didn’t pray that we might appear winsome.  He prayed that we might be winsome.

Jesus didn’t pray for his disciples to be great theologians.  He didn’t insist on their moral purity as the condition of being his followers.  He didn’t tell them to get out on the streets and overturn the oppressive structures of the Roman Empire and the patriarchal social world it inhabited.

He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.”  “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

I don’t know if winsomeness means much in the mission field.  I do know that ugliness and rancor, partisanship and triumphalism turn people away.  Many people don’t know much about Jesus; they don’t know what he taught or how he lived.  They form their opinion of Jesus based on the behavior of his followers.

For a lot of folks, what they see in the media is all they know about being Christian.  All too often, the public face of Christianity is not winsome in the least.  Christians who seek to dominate rather than serve, who stoke fears and resentment, who are quick to condemn and impose their morality on others attract no one.  Many of those with the biggest megaphones who claim to speak for Christ are portraying the Christian faith in a way that I find totally incompatible with the teaching and character of Jesus.

It’s foolish to think we can shout down that raucous bunch who misrepresent our faith.   But we can, and must, be people of love for each other, for the ones in need, and even for the ones whose viewpoints we abhor.

Prayer:  God, make us a winsome people.